TRANSCRIPT OF PRIME MINISTER ’S SPEECH AT AYER RAJAH COMMUNITY AND SERVICES COMPLEX ON 6 MARCH 1999

Friends and residents of Ayer Rajah

A good MP makes a big difference to a constituency. Hence, we’ve always taken very special care to ensure that we give you good Members of Parliament. I have known Dr Tan Cheng Bock, your Member of Parliament for some 45 years now. We went to school together in . He always had a soft spot for the underdog and a passion to help the needy and the underprivileged. It is because of this quality of his, plus many other qualities which I shall not mention in case he gets too swollen-headed, that I recommended him to be a Member of Parliament in 1980. He of course was put through the mill. He was interviewed by the senior members of the PAP and he was, happily for me, selected to be the candidate for Ayer Rajah.

He has since transformed Ayer Rajah. He has his dreams. You have heard him. He has his concept of what Ayer Rajah should be and he has got his dreams implemented for Ayer Rajah. It is very important that a Member of Parliament has some plans for his constituency because when we deliver services to a constituency, it’s done at two levels. The government will of course build the flats, the schools, the roads, provide you with water, electricity and other common services. But we have on purpose, as a government, left space for the Member of Parliament and for the constituents to do things for themselves. We therefore do not build the community centres for you, we do not build the day- care centres for you or the old folks’ home. These things we leave to the community and we do this for a good reason. If the government at the centre were to do all these things for you, there may be nothing left for you to do and therefore, how do you bond as a people?

The relationship between people and the government is therefore vertical, top to bottom or bottom to top, just one way or if you like two ways between people and government. That doesn’t allow us to build up social cohesion or bonding of the people. We want to have these horizontal relationships. Hence, we must have projects and programmes for residents and the MPs to do.

So, when we leave you space and you have a Member of Parliament with imagination, who is able to mobilise residents, community leaders, like your RC leaders and CCC leaders, you then can build up a community. So, I’m very pleased to be able to walk through Ayer Rajah -- not for the first time, I have been here several times — and see the changes in the constituency. I was here to open the day-care centre for the elderly. Today, the day-care centre has been transfonned by the Rotary Clubs into a day-care centre for pre-schoolers. They have to spend something like half a million dollars and the ability to raise funds is a very important quality of the Member of Parliament. Your MP has never asked me to help him to raise funds. Of course, as the Prime Minister, it’s easier for me to raise funds. But even the Prime Minister cannot raise S$1 million in one night.

I understand that he could do it because he can sing and for that fund-raising dinner, my understanding was not just himself but his wife and his daughter all sang. They raised a lot of money. But the point I’m making is, an MP must be able to reach out to people and raise funds and he has done so. More importantly, he is able to reach out to people to help him to build the community and he’s able to reach out to residents like yourself to come forward to celebrate this very happy occasion for Ayer Rajah.

It’s the ability of such MPs like Tan Cheng Bock that the government is able to build a happy . He, of course, is a good MP but to think that he’s the only good MP in Singapore would be wrong. There are many other good MPs like him and that’s the quality of MPs we are looking for.

Fundraising is easy in good times when our economy is growing by seven, eight per cent per year. The next two years would be difficult and, of course, I hope that when we need to raise funds, generous will still come forward to help.

But whatever the situation may be, those who need special services can be sure that our Members of Parliament will be there to help them. And of course, the government too will be working closely with the Members of Parliament to ensure that the needy and the underprivileged will always be taken care of, whether there’s good time or bad time, whether there’s economic growth or no economic growth. We are there to help all of you. We are there to help the underprivileged, the disabled, the needy.

I am happy to have the chance to walk through your complex. I’m proud of the complex, I am proud of the Member of Parliament’s work and its grassroot leaders’ contributions. I am happy to be able to open the CC for you. We won’t call it a CC now. It’s Ayer Rajah Community and Services Complex. But it is a concept which all of 11s will be following. Tomorrow, I am going to Tampines. It is also a similar concept although on a smaller scale. It is a three-in-one day- care centre -- for the old, for the young and also for the pre-schoolers.

So; this is a new concept which in land-scarce Singapore, we have to begin to promote. I’m not so sure about the field which he wants for Ayer Rajah. I have just come back from Australia. If I were the Prime Minister of Australia and he ask for the field, I will give it to him. But in Singapore, I think it’s not so easy. I will suggest he consider working together with the schools, use the fields in the schools and of course work out some arrangements where the residents would have access to more open space. But the idea is right. Wherever we can, we must integrate, fuse with the community centre so that these day-care centres can be used for the whole day and for the whole night.

So, thank you for inviting me here to be with you again to celebrate with you your very happy occasion. Thank you.

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